BattleTech: Mercenaries – CGL does a shipping booboo? Internet rages!

[dawfyddParticipant 12012xp 2]

My journey to see this Kickstarter fulfilled has ended! Slightly annoyed with myself as I failed to realise that the Cookbook the (far more important) Universe book were things you had to add-on. Looks like Universe is going to be available at retail though, so ah well >_<

Anyway, I genuinely hope that the rest of you still waiting get your stuff soon. In hand it really does feel worth the hassles.

 

And now, pictures!

 

  
Salvage Box randoms (plus 2 Blood Asps, the Savannah Battlemaster box, 3 Visigoths and 2 Shilones)

Yeah, I’ll happily take a at least another of the Somerset Strikers box

All those boxes, condensed down inot this (don;t worry, I’ll be shifting to some RUB’s once I pick them up)

[pagan8thParticipant 11215xp 1]

Everyone seems to have bought so many plastic robots. How do you store that amount of plastic? And can the planet survive the sheer quantity of packaging used in this kickstarter?

[limburger 21763xp 1]

@dawfydd from what I’ve heard the cookbook isn’t worth the paper it is printed on, because it’s a lazy collection of (stolen/copied without permission) recipes. It’s like it shows how little love CGL has for the franchise …

At least you got your copy and at least the quality of the components looks to be pretty decent as well.

Did you get the big mech as well ?
I saw someone on Reddit who had painted it to look like the front cover of the Mech Warrior 2 computer game.

//

@pagan8th I tend to back kickstarters at ‘all in’ pledge levels, because it saves me having to think about what to pick 😉
I also never worried about storage … until I started to run out of space. It’s hard to predict how big things are when you don’t see a physical product in the flesh.

There’s definitely something to be said for companies making more efficient use of packaging that’s for sure. The amount of wasted space is annoying as that means having to unpack everything and find an alternate storage solution just to store things more efficiently. I predict a lot of ‘really useful boxes’ in my future 🙂

I suspect you could play Battletech with hex&counter maps, but I’m not sure if there is any support for that from the official IP owners. It would be nice to have the options though, because that’s always a good thing. Other than that I’d argue you’re in the wrong hobby if you worry about the environmental impact that much.

[pagan8thParticipant 11215xp 2]

When I backed Mythic Battles Pantheon I toyed with the idea of ‘all in’, but I saw one of the devs standing next to a stack of boxes taller than him and I thought “that is 7 feet of storage and more stuff than I will ever need”… so I settled for 1 foot of storage which left room for more variety of games.

And all in pledges tend to cost anything from 500 to 1000 pounds (or even more) and if I’m going to spend that much I’d rather have a selection of games to choose from that one.

I assumed Battletech was a skirmish scale game where you only need a dozen mechs each side at most. Looks like people been buying hundreds.

Edit: Just noticed my 11111 XP 🙂

[dawfyddParticipant 12012xp 0]

@limburger yeah, I know the cookbook has gotten flak, but I did think I had a physical copy coming, for completeness sake. That’s on me though for not paying attention (and honestly I’m not worried about it, I was more looking forward to the Universe book that I could have brought a month or two back when it hit retail if I’d known. Again,that’s on me). And yes! I did get the big, 10mm Madcat. It is quite nice but outside of a painting project I’m worried I may just end up getting more mechs printed at the same scale >_<

@pagan8th I hear you about Mythic Battles – I went in for the basic pledge on Pantheon but then one the giveaway the folks here did for the all-in and the work to make it all compress down was *bonkers*. Quite glad that Ragnarok and Isfet are smaller overall. All-in pledges are dangerously tempting though – I have more than a few, as well as some (like Conan) that I’ve filled out the bits I was missing over the years, and it’s both nice to have that completionist itch scratched and daunting for space.
As for Battletech, yeah it’s small-scale, with even Alpha Strike doesn’t push the model count too high, but there are sooo many vehicles, mechs and variants of such, coupled with the temptation to build units from the lore/ playthrus of the various videogames so you have options, it’s real hard to say no once you start picking up these revamped Lance/Star packs. I mean I have 5 or 6 RUB’s filled already just of the Mechs I’ve brought since CGL launched these plastics, and have brought multiples of some sets just because it has some (or even just on!) models that I wanted multiples of.

 

[sundancer 43057xp 1]

@dawfydd I’m not sure the cookbook had been physical? I thought it was pdf only.

I’m now taking bets on when EU backers will get their stuff. I say Q3/2025 if we’re lucky.

[pagan8thParticipant 11215xp 1]

My only experience with Battletech is CityTech from back in the 80’s and it was too much paperwork. Vaguely remember having to track ammo, weapon damage, overheating etc it just didn’t appeal to me.

The only use I got out of it was I proxied the models as robots in an rpg. I still have the plastics somewhere, but the rest of the game was junked years ago.

Silent Death by ICE was more my game back then and I still have that lurking in a cupboard. Think they were making an RPG of Silent Death back in the day, but that was when ICE went into it’s ‘long dark’.

[pagan8thParticipant 11215xp 0]

That’s very optimistic @sundancer as I think trump will have invaded Greenland by Q3 and be at war with europe.

[grantinvanman 2227xp 0]

@sundancer the cookbook is physical. My local has it.
I picked up Universe off Amazon.

@dawfydd fantastic haul!

[jamescutts 6932xp 2]

My pledge also arrived yesterday. Not near as big as dawfydd but one large 5.3kg arrived safe and sound yesterday morning, amazing given it was delivered by Evri.

As for the cookbook, your really not missing out on anything, having gone over the pdf, its a waste of time, cheap copy and paste off the internet of recipes and photos with vague BattleTech names added.

So initial thoughts:

Boy I’m glad this saga is just about over for me, not been a fun campaign to have backed, my first and last by Catalyst. I can only hope it finishes soon for those still waiting, and they get a similar sense of relief when it does finally hopefully ™️ arrive! I was still undecided if it will all be kept or at least some sold off, however a friend doing a unboxing stream and sharing his love of Battletech has kind of kicked the spark again.

Packaging by GamesQuest was great. A battalion pledge all in one box. No wasted space, but equally all well protected, the only damage if you could call it that is a slightly warped art of war book, but I don’t think this is packing related, just poor quality, and i was already disappointed in the book from the pdf.

Evri, amazingly delivered fine, however the only notification i got was from GamesQuest, not evri who had notification of the parcel long before, and i usually get notifications in the evri app for any dispatched parcels, i can only assume that contact details where not passed on to evri hence me getting no evri notifications. This may explain why people have been getting mystery deliveries with no notification.

As best as I can tell everything has arrived, though I’ll be honest I lost track of the salvage box situation long ago. On the face of it without unboxing everything seems reasonably decent in quality, inner sphere battle armour, acceptable, not as melty as some but comparatively poor based on other miniatures. Turns out there was the extra “free” compensation salve box incuded, backer kit said 3 Mercs salvage boxes, i got 4.

My general complaints about packaging remain, the wasted space in the force packs which are about 80% empty space must have significantly contributed to shipping costs and just all round feels like a massive waste, this is particularly evident with the Battlefield Objectives force pack. The two aero space fighters are about the only things i think the packaging is decent for.

Dice, I’m not sure at what level by you get a pair of “free” chevron dice, these are garbage, weighted and all round poor quality, in face the dice in the main box are not much better.

All round, initial thoughts, relieved its arrived and for me at least I can draw a line under the fiasco.

[jamescutts 6932xp 0]

I can’t see Universe on Amazon in the UK or EU @grantinvanman

[grantinvanman 2227xp 0]

@jamescutts – I got mine in Canada, sorry!

[Author]

Posts